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Friday, 26 June 2009

Michael Jackson Dead

The Death of Michael Jackson is a significant milestone, if not quite a Kennedy moment. Thriller remains the highest selling album and video ever, and cutural historians may well see him as the Elvis of his generation.

However repellent and bizarre the Sun’s “Wacko Jacko” had come to look and sound, with his strange colour, weird childish ego and nose jobs, Jackson was an astonishingly able entertainer. For all his undoubted personal and musical eclipse, he still managed to sell out a run of 50 O2 concerts next month.

Jackson’s stage act defined a central strand of a whole generation’s culture. His seamless song and dance fusion and OTT stage effects had astonishing visual impact, delivered to audiences at one fell swoop and largely without computer graphics, fusing talent, hard work and meticulous craftsmanship. Fred Astaire once phoned him to compliment him on his dancing. Along with Freddie Mercury’s performances, Jackson’s were the popular entertainment phenomenon of their age, and his videos defined the field for a new art form.

Parents may well wag their fingers and draw attention to the ludicrous aspects of Jackson’s strangely blessed and stangely cursed fifty years — they certainly give pause for thought to any pushy mummy tempted to shove her little darling onto the stage at age 6. Good news — you become an icon. Bad news — your whole life is messed up. Just say no.

Driven by a desperate need to be loved, combined with an inability to grow up, Garland’s Law still applies, in good ways and bad: “Be a first rate version of yourself, not a second rate version of someone else” Jackson’s ability and inability to do that, musically and personally, were the rub. It’ll make a hell of a movie, someday.

6 comments:

That's the best comment I've seen, and I'll refer others to it. His music wasn't my scene, and his plastic face put me off any interest I might have developed in it. For '80s music I was more familiar with Queen, partly because my kids liked it, but I think you've captured his significance very well.

Millions of little members of the worldwide F.F.A. (Future Followers of the Antichrist) have finally learned how to find a certain part of their lower anatomy and quickly touch it while dancing - thanks to Michael Jackson, the highest paid Lower Anatomy Toucher of all time! Special thanks also go to the Jesus-bashing, Hell-bound Hollywood moguls who were just as quick to see higher profits in lower anatomies! [Just saw this opinion on the web. Other grabby items on MSN, Google, etc. include "Separation of Raunch and State," "David Letterman's Hate, Etc.," "Tribulation Index becomes Rapture Index," and "Bible Verses Obama Avoids." - something for everyone!]

Child of God by adoption and grace, husband of Lucy, father of five, jumped-up vicar (Area Bishop of Buckingham).
Born Edinburgh. Deacon 1979, Priest 1980, Bishop 2003. Cambridge MA, Oxford DPhil — ‘I am a doctor, but not the kind that helps people.’ I trained for ordained ministry at Wycliffe Hall. I have worked in various C of E contexts, urban and suburban, as well as in prison.